Press Releases

TransOptions Wraps Up 2012 Vanpool & Emergency Ride Home Survey

03.23.2012

We asked for your feedback and the results are in. TransOptions has concluded its 2012 Vanpool and Emergency Ride Home Survey and its 2012 Carpool and Emergency Ride Home Survey. Through the surveys we found that vanpooling and carpooling really are making a difference, both in reducing vehicle miles traveled and in saving commuters money.

Getting Cars Off The Road

Prior to joining their vanpool, 85 percent of vanpoolers were driving alone to work. Prior to joining a carpool, over 91 percent of current carpoolers were driving alone to work. Many commuters are making a habit of sharing a ride. Roughly half of all carpoolers share a ride 5 days every week and over 83 percent share the driving responsibility.

The survey also shows how cost-effective it is to vanpool, with most vanpoolers spending under $100 per month on their vanpool commute. To find out how much you can save by sharing a ride, check out our driving cost calculator.

High Praise for Ridesharing

All 120 vanpool respondents said they would recommend ride sharing to others. Comments included that vanpooling “makes us less dependent on oil,” “makes sense,” and is a “great program with great rewards.” Others said that “it is so much easier to commute, feel refreshed going to and from work,” and “it rocks!”

Suggestions from vanpoolers included increasing funding for the program, making more items available online, lowering lease rates for the van, linking benefits to changes in gas prices, and implementing a no-smoking policy in all vans.

Are You Already Carpooling?

Most carpoolers are coworkers (71 percent), though almost a quarter of carpoolers are spouses. If you currently share a ride to work (or even partway to work) with someone (even your spouse), you’re carpooling! You can register your commute with us to be eligible for two free Emergency Rides Home per year.

Giving You Options

When it comes to our Emergency Ride Home program, carpoolers and vanpoolers love that it’s in place, but don’t necessarily need it as much as one might think. Most vanpoolers (85 percent) would continue to vanpool without the ERH program in place, and only 19 percent have requested an ERH. Carpoolers use it even less frequently, with only 8.5 percent of carpoolers requesting an Emergency Ride Home.

Suggestions for ERH included better communication with the limo/cab services, and carpoolers voiced comments from “I will always carpool as long as I work,” to “Carpooling is a great way to get to work in NJ given the lack of viable mass-transit solutions.”